An Ontario Superior Court judge is telling federal tax authorities they can’t set limits on how much a charity devotes to political activity in a new ruling.

Justice Ed Morgan said in the decision Tuesday that the Canada Revenue Agency could not justify a restriction on charities that they spend no more than 10 per cent of their time on political advocacy, calling it an unconstitutional limit on freedom of expression.

Morgan’s ruling — which begins with the philosophical question, what is political? — says all political activities are charitable activities so long as groups advocate “in pursuit of the overall charitable purpose.”

In the case before him, the purpose of group Canada Without Poverty was to lobby for changes to help homeless people.

The group’s executive director, Leilani Farha, said in a statement the decision reinforces the importance of charities getting involved in the democratic process “and we look forward to the bright future for public policy dialogue in Canada.”

Canada Without Poverty first launched the challenge in 2016 after being one of several groups caught up in what were seen as politically motivated audits of charities challenging policies under the previous Conservative government.

The group and others audited were threatened with the loss of their charitable status.

The Liberals have promised to change the rules, but have yet to provide an official response to an expert panel report from last year.

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I disagree with Michele K only in that my concern is with charitable organizations who are trying to effect social change–I know that’s a fine distinction, but nonetheless.

All my volunteer work though has been with organizations like that: rape crisis/sexual assault services, battered women’s services, pro-choice organizations, HIV/AIDS services, community substance use planning, etc.

All those services have seen the impact of one or more current policies and/or laws. Consequently, all those services have not only been involved in “band-aid” approaches, dealing with the immediate impact on individuals, important as they are, but have also wanted to address the longer-term aspects of the problems.

And they have been severely constrained or barred from doing so by this charitable institution regulation. Or severely punished if they transgressed.

Not only has that been a critical issue, but:
– governments have been able to operationalize it to suit their own ideology (witness the HarperCons going after Oxfam for, gasp, working to actually prevent poverty)
– and all the time this … stuff has been going on, organizations like the Fraser Institute, C.D. Howe, and others, have been scot-free to blatantly lobby governments and society at large, often under the guise of “scientific” (read “skewed”) research, to support their own values, and still retain their charitable status.

So yeah, about bloody time. Now that the federal government has a court decision to support making this change, let’s go, Libs.